Item6Appendix1PANPRE20220016

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 Appendix | 26/08/2022

AGENDA ITEM 6

APPENDIX I

PRE/2022/0016

PAN APPLIC­A­TION FORM, SUP­PORT­ING PLAN & PRE-APP RESPONSE

The High­land Coun­cil Com­hairle na Gàid­healtachd PRO­POS­AL OF APPLIC­A­TION NOTICE MOL­ADH BRATH IARRTAIS

The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Scot­land) Act 1997 as amended by the Plan­ning Etc. (Scot­land) Act 2006 Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment Pro­ced­ure) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2008

The Coun­cil will respond with­in 21 days of receiv­ing the Notice. It will advise wheth­er the pro­posed Pre-applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion is sat­is­fact­ory or if addi­tion­al noti­fic­a­tion and con­sulta­tion above the stat­utory min­im­um is required. Please note that a plan­ning applic­a­tion for this pro­posed devel­op­ment can­not be sub­mit­ted less than 12 weeks from the date the Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice is received by the Coun­cil and without the stat­utory con­sulta­tion require­ments hav­ing been under­taken. The plan­ning applic­a­tion must be accom­pan­ied by a Pre-applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion report.

Applic­ant — Trans­port Scot­land Address. Major Pro­jects Buchanan House 58 Port Dun­das Road Glas­gow G4 0HF

Phone — 0141 272 7100 E‑mail – [email protected]

Address or Loc­a­tion of Pro­posed Development

Agent — AMJV (WSP Glas­gow Office) Address. Floor 7 110 Queen Street Glas­gow G1 3BX

Phone — 07557172747 E‑mail – ACNMU@​wsp.​com

Please refer to strip plans appen­ded to this sub­mis­sion, which out­lines the loc­a­tion of the route.

Descrip­tion (South-to-North): • The ACN­MU route starts at Dou­gal Drive. A pri­or­ity cross­ing will be provided to con­nect with the exist­ing Spey­side Way (Core Path LBS116) to the South of Dou­gal Drive. The route con­tin­ues north to Gran­ish Junc­tion and over this sec­tion, the route lies remote from the car­riage­way run­ning to the east of the B9152. • Exist­ing T‑Junction between the B9152, A95 and A9 will be replaced by a pro­posed round­about as part of the P11 Dalraddy to Slo­chd A9 Dualling Pro­ject. The route will remain on the east­ern side of this pro­posed new round­about. A cross­ing will take users from the east to the west side of the A95, approx­im­ately 60 metres north of the pro­posed new round­about • Between Gran­ish Junc­tion and Avie­lochan the route remains adja­cent the west of the A95 car­riage­way • Due to the close prox­im­ity of an exist­ing pond adja­cent to the A95 at Avie­lochan, the route is remote from car­riage­way at this location

• The route runs to the west of the High­land Main­line Rail­way (HMR), and is remote from the A95 car­riage­way and on the approaches to the HMR under­pass, is shared with a pro­posed A9 Dualling Dalraddy to Slo­chd pro­ject agri­cul­tur­al access track over a length of 80 metres. Between the HMR Under­pass and Kin­veachy Junc­tion, the route is adja­cent to the west of the A95 carriageway

• At Kin­veachy Junc­tion the devel­op­ment will con­tin­ue from the west side of the A95 to the west side of the B9513 via a cross­ing of a private access road. The route is remote from the B9153 to retain the line of mature trees which are adja­cent to the west of the car­riage­way. An uncon­trolled cross­ing of the B9153 will be provided to con­nect with the exist­ing off

car­riage­way NCN7 lead­ing to Boat of Garten. Between Kin­veachy Junc­tion and Car­rbridge, the ACN­MU runs on the west side of the B9153.

• The ACN­MU route ter­min­ates at the south­ern extents of Car­rbridge. For cyc­lists trav­el­ling North from the ACN­MU into Car­rbridge, a trans­ition has been provided to allow cyc­lists to con­tin­ue on the B9153 carriageway.

Descrip­tion of Development

Form­a­tion of the Aviemore to Car­rbridge Non-Motor­ised User Route/​Path, of approx­im­ately 10km in length and formed via both exist­ing and new paths

The devel­op­ment will cre­ate a wholly segreg­ated NMU Route/​Path between Aviemore and Car­rbridge with an approx­im­ate length of 10km. Some of this will include upgrad­ing of exist­ing infra­struc­ture by resur­fa­cing with a bound bitu­min­ous sur­face as well as widen­ing to meet the required 3m stand­ard for an NMU route, but the major­ity of the route will be a newly con­struc­ted bitu­min­ous surface.

The devel­op­ment of the ACN­MU is clas­si­fied as a major devel­op­ment with­in The Town and Coun­try Plan­ning (Hier­archy of Devel­op­ments) (Scot­land) Reg­u­la­tions 2009 giv­en that the devel­op­ment exceeds 8km in length (sched­ule, para­graph 6). This also means that the devel­op­ment will be sub­ject to an Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment as has been con­firmed by the screen­ing opin­ion received from the High­land Coun­cil on 22/02/2022

Pre-applic­a­tion Screen­ing Notice

Has a Screen­ing Opin­ion been issued on the need for a Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion notice by the High­land Coun­cil in respect of the pro­posed development?

If yes, please provide a copy of this Opinion.

Yes, please find attached with­in the submission

Com­munity Consultation

There have been two com­pleted pro­grammes of pub­lic con­sulta­tion (At Baseline Assess­ment stage and Options Apprais­al Stage).

There is a fur­ther con­sulta­tion event (Out­line Design Stage) cur­rently in pro­gress with a clos­ing date of 15 June 2022 which is a hybrid event of both in-per­son and virtual/​online (please see fol­low­ing section).

State which oth­er parties have received a copy of this Pro­pos­al of Applic­a­tion Notice.

Com­munity Council/​s 〈 Aviemore & Vicin­ity; < Boat of Garten; 〈 Carrbridge;

〈 Dul­nain Bridge; 〈 Grant­own-on-Spey; 〈 Kin­craig & Vicin­ity; 〈 Nethy Bridge; and, 〈 New­ton­more. Names/​details of any oth­er parties 〈 High­land Coun­cil < CNPA < Sus­trans < HITRANS

Please give details of con­sulta­tion cur­rently in progress:

Out­line Design Exhib­i­tion (May/​June 2022)

This event dif­fers from the pre­vi­ous 2 events in that the pre­ferred route has now been selec­ted, with that in mind the stated pur­pose of the exhib­i­tion is to: < 〈 Provide an over­view of the Pre­ferred route design pro­pos­als Present details of the ongo­ing design devel­op­ment of the pre­ferred route and out­line the next steps for the pro­ject < Provide attendees with an oppor­tun­ity to sub­mit any views they may have on the design for review in advance of the applic­a­tion for plan­ning con­sent being submitted.

Some of the exhib­i­tion mater­i­als include: Over­view plans A graph­ic of the pro­ject devel­op­ment pro­cess Details of pre­vi­ous com­ment­ary on the NMU route 〈 〈 〈 < Key areas of the pre­ferred route 〈 The same mater­i­als are avail­able at both the ​‘In per­son’ and vir­tu­al events.

Ven­ues: Event 1: Aviemore Com­munity Centre, Muir­ton, Aviemore, PH221SF Event 2: Car­rbridge Vil­lage Hall, Main Road, Car­rbridge, PH233BB

Date and time

Event 1: Aviemore, Wed­nes­day 25 May 2022, 3 – 8pm Event 2: Car­rbridge Thursday 26 May 2022, 2 – 6pm

A par­al­lel VIR­TU­AL EVENT has been pos­ted on the Trans­port Scot­land web­site at transport.gov.scot/ACNMU over the 3 week peri­od from Monday 23 May to Monday 15 June where the pub­lic will also be able to provide feed­back on the designs

Advert­ising

In advance of the exhib­i­tion, let­ters of invit­a­tion and an accom­pa­ny­ing fly­er were sent via email to loc­al Com­munity Coun­cils and NMU groups who were asked to dis­trib­ute the inform­a­tion to mem­bers and the wider com­munity. Sim­il­arly, invit­a­tions were issued via email to CNPA, THC, HITRANS and Sus­trans, who were asked to dis­trib­ute them to inter­ested parties. Further

invites were issued via email to His­tor­ic Envir­on­ment Scot­land, SEPA, NatureScot and The Spey Fish­ery Board in their capa­city as Stat­utory Con­sul­tees. The invites were issued via email to the fol­low­ing Com­munity Coun­cils: 〈 Aviemore & Vicin­ity; < Boat of Garten; 〈 Car­rbridge; 〈 Dul­nain Bridge; 〈 Grant­own-on-Spey; 〈 Kin­craig & Vicin­ity; 〈 Nethy Bridge; and, 〈 Newtonmore.

The invit­a­tions were issued to loc­al stake­hold­er and NMU groups, and offered an oppor­tun­ity for rep­res­ent­at­ives from the groups to view the vir­tu­al room and attend the in-per­son event.

Press advert­ise­ments were pub­lished in the fol­low­ing news­pa­pers: < Inverness Cour­i­er 〈 High­land News 〈 Strath­spey and Badenoch Her­ald; and 〈 The Press and Journal

A poster / leaf­let drop for busi­nesses and groups to advert­ise the event at their premises/​venues was car­ried out.

Details of any oth­er con­sulta­tion meth­ods (date, time and with whom)

Affected parties (landown­ers and those with a land interest with­in the study bound­ary) have been iden­ti­fied through a form­al search pro­cess and have been engaged with through­out the pro­ject devel­op­ment (2019 – Present)

Ongo­ing cor­res­pond­ence with stake­hold­ers and landown­ers through­out the devel­op­ment of the pro­ject. Form­al meet­ings have taken place as follows:

Meet­ing Date	Meet­ing Name	Attendees
21/01/2019	Multi Agency Meet­ing 1	High­land Coun­cil, Cairngorm NPA, Sus­trans, HITRANS
22/08/2019	Multi Agency Meet­ing 2	High­land Coun­cil, Cairngorm NPA, Sus­trans, HITRANS
03/06/2020	Multi Agency Meet­ing 3	High­land Coun­cil, Cairngorm NPA, Sus­trans, HITRANS
09/07/2020	Stat­utory Con­sents includ­ing Plan­ning Meeting	High­land Coun­cil (Plan­ning Team), Cairngorm NPA (Plan­ning Team), Sus­trans, HITRANS
10/01/2021	Badenoch & Strath­spey Busi­ness Ward Meeting	High­land Coun­cil, Badenoch and Strath­spey Ward Councillors
05/07/2021	Con­sulta­tion with BEAR/​Transport Scot­land Roads	BEAR, Trans­port Scot­land Roads Depart­ment (NE and NW Units)
16/02/2022	Multi Agency Meet­ing 4	High­land Coun­cil, Cairngorm NPA, Sus­trans, HITRANS
02/03/2022	Stat­utory Pro­cesses Sum­mary and Clarifications	High­land Coun­cil (Plan­ning Team), Cairngorm NPA (Plan­ning Team),

21/03/2022 | BEAR / TS Roads Meet­ing –(Advance of Tech­nic­al Meet­ing) | BEAR 28/03/2022 | Multi Agency Tech­nic­al Meet­ing | High­land Coun­cil, Cairngorm NPA, BEAR 31/03/2022 | Access­ib­il­ity Group Meet­ing | CNPA, Dis­ab­il­ity Bey­ond Bor­ders, Badenoch and Strath­spey Access Pan­el 06/04/2022 | Stat­utory Pro­cesses Meet­ing | High­land Coun­cil (Plan­ning Team), Cairngorm NPA (Plan­ning Team), 19/04/2022 | Main­ten­ance Dis­cus­sion | High­land Coun­cil 19/04/2022 | Main­ten­ance Dis­cus­sion | Cairngorm NPA 20/04/2022 | Main­ten­ance Dis­cus­sion | Sus­trans 20/04/2022 | Main­ten­ance Dis­cus­sion | BEAR 22/04/2022 | Main­ten­ance Dis­cus­sion | High­land Council

Signed (John Kennedy, AMJV) Date: 09/06/2022

Plot­ted: Apr 22, 2022-11:12am by: SCOT 8356

0 10 Mil­li­metres 100 DO NOT SCALE

GRAN­ISH JUNC­TION B9152-

AVIEMORE A9 ‑DOU­GAL DRIVE NOTES

1. DO NOT SCALE FROM THIS DRAWING.

CON­TIN­UED ON THE RIGHT CAR­RBRIDGE N

N KEY ACN­MU PRE­FERRED ROUTE A95 0

HIGH­LAND RAIL­WAY LINE ‑NCN7 Repro­duced by per­mis­sion of Ord­nance Sur­vey on behalf of HMSO. Crown copy­right and data­base right 2015. All rights reserved. Ord­nance Sur­vey Licence num­ber 100046668. PLAN SCALE 1:10,000

HIGH­LAND RAIL­WAY LINE B9153/NCN7 A9

KIN­VEACHY JUNC­TION CON­TIN­UED ON THE LEFT J P01 CC RO RS 29/11/21 FIRST ISSUE P02 CC RO RS 22/04/22 FIRST ISSUE Rev Drawn / Des Checked Approved Date Descrip­tion A95 Draw­ing Status FOR INFORM­A­TION Suit­ab­il­ity S2 TRANS­PORT SCOT­LAND COM­HD­HAIL ALBA AVIEMORE TO CAR­RBRIDGE NMU STUDY Draw­ing Title D ATKINS mouchelii AS SHOWN Ori­gin­al Size A1 Draw­ing Num­ber Pro­ject ACN­MU LOC­A­TION PLAN Designed/​Drawn Checked CC RO Date 18/04/22 Dab 22/04/22 Approved RS Author­ised RS 22/04/22 22/04/22 Revi­sion Volume ACN­MU-AMJ-HGN- X_ZZZZZ_ZZ — DR — RD — 0002 Loc­a­tion Type | Role P02 Number

The High­land Coun­cil Com­hairle na Gàid­healtachd Plan­ning Ref: Pro­pos­al Name Date of Meet­ing Date of Response Response Pre Applic­a­tion Advice Ser­vice: Response 20/03131/PREMAJ CNPA Ref. PRE/2020/0016 (CNPA) Land between Aviemore and Car­rbridge Non-Motor­ised User (NMU) route between the set­tle­ments of Aviemore and Car­rbridge. 9 Septem­ber 2020 5 Octo­ber 2020

Gen­er­al and Policy Back­ground This pro­pos­al is for a new non-motor­ised user route between Aviemore and Car­rbridge and will be con­sidered in rela­tion to the policies of the Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) 2015 and asso­ci­ated sup­ple­ment­ary guid­ance as well as any oth­er mater­i­al con­sid­er­a­tions that may apply includ­ing the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy.

The LDP and asso­ci­ated guid­ance are avail­able on this web link: http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​p​a​r​k​-​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​p​l​a​n​ning/

Prin­ciple of devel­op­ment The prin­ciple of devel­op­ment must be con­sidered against the rel­ev­ant policies and guid­ance as con­tained with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan 2017 – 2022 and Scot­tish Plan­ning Policy. These doc­u­ments lend sup­port to the prin­ciple of increased con­nectiv­ity sub­ject to detailed assess­ment regard­ing the land­scape and eco­lo­gic­al impacts of the pro­posed development.

Policy 2.2: Sup­port­ing Eco­nom­ic Growth of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan 2015 seeks to sup­port devel­op­ment which enhances form­al and inform­al recre­ation and leis­ure facil­it­ies;… tour­ism and leis­ure related infra­struc­ture includ­ing… improved oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access and through improved levels of open space where it will have no adverse envir­on­ment­al impacts, makes a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion to the exper­i­ence of vis­it­ors and where it adds to or extends the core tour­ist sea­son. The policy fur­ther seeks to sup­port the vital­ity and viab­il­ity of the loc­al eco­nomy and the broad­er eco­nomy of the park.

Land­scape Impacts Policy 5: Land­scape states that there shall be a pre­sump­tion against devel­op­ment that does not con­serve and enhance the land­scape char­ac­ter and spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Nation­al Park and states that any sig­ni­fic­ant adverse effects on the land­scape char­ac­ter of the Park must clearly be out­weighed by social or eco­nom­ic bene­fits of nation­al import­ance. Any adverse effects should be min­im­ised and mit­ig­ated through appro­pri­ate sit­ing, lay­out, scale and construction.

It is noted that the pre­ferred option for the route has not been con­firmed and full land­scape, visu­al and Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­ity assess­ments have not been com­pleted. A full apprais­al of each route will be required to jus­ti­fy the chosen route.

A desk top sur­vey has been under­taken, how­ever, a site based sur­vey will be required with full details of the assess­ment of effects on land­scape char­ac­ter areas and visu­al recept­ors to accom­pany and sub­sequent applic­a­tion for plan­ning permission.

A full SLQ assess­ment will be required for each option to jus­ti­fy the final choice.

The sur­vey work under­taken and inform­a­tion sub­mit­ted to date is incom­plete and does not fol­low best practice.

Please refer to the Land­scape Advisor’s detailed response which is attached 

Envir­on­ment­al Impacts

Policy 4: Nat­ur­al Her­it­age of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan states that devel­op­ment shall only be per­mit­ted where the integ­rity of the area or the qual­it­ies for which it has been des­ig­nated will not be adversely affected, unless any such adverse effects are clearly out­weighed by social, eco­nom­ic or envir­on­ment­al bene­fits of nation­al importance.

Policy 8: Sport and Recre­ation sup­ports devel­op­ment of recre­ation­al facil­it­ies… or the enhance­ment of the qual­ity and design of exist­ing facil­it­ies where they demon­strate best prac­tice in terms of sus­tain­able design, oper­a­tion and future main­ten­ance and where there will be no adverse envir­on­ment­al impacts.

All route options will impact on wood­land, includ­ing Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory hab­it­at through the loss of trees, ground flora, dis­turb­ance to soils and the loss of exist­ing wood­land edge. There will be a sub­stan­tial loss of AWI wood­land, how­ever this is unavoid­able giv­en the desire to cre­ate a dir­ect route. Whichever route option is chosen, the aim must be to min­im­ise dam­age to semi-nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and hab­it­at of con­ser­va­tion value as far as pos­sible. Where hab­it­ats are to be lost, com­pens­a­tion will be required. Giv­en the con­strained nature of the site this will likely have to be off-site and must be equal to the value of that being lost (as detailed in the Con­trol of Wood­land Remov­al Policy). It should be noted how­ever that ancient wood­land is con­sidered irre­place­able due to the time taken to cre­at this type of habitat.

The impact on Caper­cail­lie is likely to be sig­ni­fic­ant, although for oth­er pro­tec­ted mam­mals there will not be a sig­ni­fic­ant loss of hab­it­at giv­en it will be pre­dom­in­antly edge hab­it­at along­side busy roads and exist­ing paths. A detailed walk-over sur­vey of all routes will be required for pro­tec­ted mam­mals, to identi­fy places of rest with­in 30 metres of the work­ing cor­ridor. A larger/​wider sur­vey (up to 200 metres) will be required for water cross­ings to search for otter holts and couches. Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Plans will be required where any impacts are anticipated.

Wood ant colon­ies will be likely to be impacted upon and there­fore sur­vey work must be under­taken early on to estab­lish what nests will be affected. Nests may require trans­lo­ca­tion and this will require for­ward planning.

There is scope for the devel­op­ment to act as a wild­life cor­ridor if designed and rein­stated to a very high stand­ard. Inter­pret­a­tion along the route is encour­aged to increase aware­ness of loc­al biodiversity.

Please refer to the Eco­logy Advisor’s detailed response which is attached 

Pub­lic Access

Policy 3: Sus­tain­able Design of the LDP seeks to ensure that new devel­op­ment main­tains and max­im­ises all oppor­tun­it­ies for respons­ible out­door access, includ­ing links into the exist­ing path net­work. All devel­op­ments are to be con­sist­ent with the Core Paths Plan.

Policy 8: Sport and Recre­ation sup­ports devel­op­ment of recre­ation­al facil­it­ies… or the enhance­ment of the qual­ity and design of exist­ing facil­it­ies where they main­tain and max­im­ise all oppor­tun­it­ies to link into the exist­ing path network.

01 (orange) route links well with exist­ing path net­work and offers the only real­ist­ic access north from the vil­lage of Aviemore.

P1 — P3 (purple) route fol­lows the exist­ing Aviemore orbit­al and the Spey­side Way. The Spey­side Way is an offi­cial long dis­tance route des­ig­nated under the 1967 Coun­tryside (Scot­land) Act. The route has been pro­moted for over 20 years and is a recog­nised rolled dust and farm/​forest road well used by three audi­ences; res­id­ents under­tak­ing short jour­neys, vis­it­ors under­tak­ing short jour­neys, and long dis­tance route users. It is likely that cur­rent users would see a sig­ni­fic­ant change in the exper­i­ence if this route, through regen­er­at­ing nat­ive wood­land, is tar­mac, con­tra­dict­ing the state­ment that this offers ​‘less loss of land­scape ele­ments con­trib­ut­ing to the char­ac­ter’ . It would poten­tially ​‘urb­an­ise’ this coun­tryside exper­i­ence and receive sig­ni­fic­ant neg­at­ive feedback.

This route cre­ates a route from Aviemore to Carr-bridge that is 3km longer (12−15 mins for the ​‘aver­age’ cyc­list) than A95 B9153 sug­gest­ing that the act­ive trav­el­ler may con­tin­ue to use the road.

The pro­mo­tion of P1 – P3 (purple) route may encour­age users wish­ing to access Carr- bridge to use the ​‘short cut’ forest road from ​‘The Yard’ NW to Kin­veachy and A95 through an area of Caper­caille with poten­tial neg­at­ive impacts fol­lowed by a short sec­tion on A95 a poten­tial ​‘hot spot’ with no form­al access to sec­tions O2 or 03. Caper­caille pro­tec­tion pre­vi­ously ​‘rejec­ted’ this as an option. Fur­ther sur­vey work will be required on the poten­tial impact on Capercaille.

Options for cre­at­ing an off-road, rolled dust path from ​‘The Yard’ to the county road into Boat of Garten as part of Spey­side Way (par­al­lel to the rough forest road) are being developed by CNPA and Nature Scotland.

P1 — P3 (purple) route will be main­tained as Spey­side Way con­tinu­ing to provide access between Aviemore and Boat of Garten if not upgraded as an NMU

If P1-P3 (purple) route is pro­gressed, fur­ther detail on imple­ment­a­tion safe act­ive travel through the vil­lage of Boat of Garten will be required.

It is noted that the Blue route requires sig­ni­fic­ant remov­al of road­side nat­ive wood­land and the pro­ject should invest­ig­ate ways that this could be com­pensated for by either replant­ing or sup­port­ing nat­ive wood­land expan­sion near to the route.

Pro­cess It is under­stood that this pro­pos­al will con­sti­tute a major applic­a­tion under the Scot­tish Government’s hier­archy of devel­op­ment so appro­pri­ate pre applic­a­tion con­sulta­tion with the com­munity will require to be undertaken.

In addi­tion the pro­pos­al will require to be screened to estab­lish if Envir­on­ment­al Impact Assess­ment is required – the applic­ant will require to make such a request to the High­land Coun­cil who will con­sult with the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA).

Any applic­a­tion would be sub­mit­ted to the High­land Coun­cil for val­id­a­tion. There­after once val­id, an applic­a­tion for this type and scale of devel­op­ment would be called in by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) for determ­in­a­tion as it con­sti­tutes a Type 1 devel­op­ment under our cri­ter­ia for call in http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/wp- more detail on this link: content/uploads/2016/02/151218PANApplyingForPlanningPermissionV22.pdf

The CNPA would then offer a pro­cessing agree­ment set­ting out a timetable towards determ­in­a­tion and identi­fy­ing which Plan­ning Com­mit­tee it would be con­sidered at. All applic­a­tions determ­ined by the CNPA are decided at Com­mit­tee. The CNPA would wel­come ongo­ing dis­cus­sion on the pro­pos­als pri­or to sub­mis­sion of an application.

Con­clu­sion In order to fully con­sider any applic­a­tion detailed sup­port­ing inform­a­tion as set out below will be required. Sub­mis­sion of a com­plete pack­age of inform­a­tion will help to facil­it­ate pro­cessing, avoid­ing the need for re con­sulta­tion with oth­er parties and import­antly enable the pub­lic to com­ment fully. It will also avoid, in the event of the applic­a­tion being sup­por­ted, the need for extens­ive use of ​“sus­pens­ive” plan­ning con­di­tions. Inform­a­tion set out below rep­res­ents our ini­tial assess­ment and we will of course be guided by the responses of oth­er stat­utory con­sul­tees who it is expec­ted will be seek­ing addi­tion­al information.

Key Points	Assess­ments to be car­ried out and/​or sub­mit­ted with application
Detailed Plans	All stand­ard plans to be provided. Site Sec­tions — to show exist­ing, pro­posed and restored ground levels across the devel­op­ment. Design and Access State­ment – this is required for all major applic­a­tions and more advice on mat­ters to be covered is avail­able on the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment web­site. This should cov­er the rationale and evol­u­tion of

Land­scape Impacts | the choice of route options and the jus­ti­fic­a­tion for the chosen route. Land­scape and Visu­al Impact Assess­ment (GLVIA meth­od­o­logy) – this will be required for the full route and should be informed by a prop­er site sur­vey. The Land­scape Char­ac­ter Assess­ment must use the CNPA LCA 2010 as its baseline. http://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​c​a​ring- future/­cairngorms-land­scapes/­land­scape- areas/​The visu­al assess­ment must include recre­ation recept­ors (both users of the track and oth­ers) res­id­ents and those work­ing in the area. The visu­al assess­ment must also include a sequen­tial visu­al assess­ment for those trav­el­ling along the A95, B9153 as well as the cycle path itself. An LVIA must also be included for all route options to jus­ti­fy the pre­ferred route. Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies Impact Assess­ment — con­sid­er­a­tion of the impacts of the devel­op­ment on the Spe­cial Land­scape Qual­it­ies is required in accord­ance with NatureScot’s latest draft guid­ance. This assess­ment shall include : Gen­er­al Qual­it­ies: • Land­scape both cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al Glens and Straths: • Broad farmed straths • Renown rivers (purple route) Trees, woods and forests: • Dark and ven­er­able pine­woods • Light and airy birch­woods • Long asso­ci­ation with forestry Wild­life and nature • Dom­in­ance of land­forms (blue and orange routes) Visu­al and sens­ory qual­it­ies • Attract­ive and con­trast­ing tex­tures Recre­ation • A land­scape of oppor­tun­it­ies It is con­sidered that wild­ness will not be affected. Full Tree Sur­vey and Pro­tec­tion Plan – work around trees will occur and this should Envir­on­ment­al Impacts | include a sur­vey of not­able trees (indi­vidu­al and small groups) and areas of wood­land. Com­pens­at­ory Wood­land Plant­ing Scheme — to provide for hab­it­at loss and will pos­sibly have to be off site giv­en the restraints of the site. Detailed land­scape plans with full plant­ing / seed­ing spe­cific­a­tions and object­ive-based land­scape man­age­ment plan and land­scape main­ten­ance sched­ule — this inform­a­tion should clearly identi­fy areas to be planted, spe­cies mix and dens­ity, pro­tec­tion and future main­ten­ance. Visu­al­isa­tions — to demon­strate how the pro­posed devel­op­ment will fit into the land­scape. This could use­fully include pho­tomont­ages and visu­al sec­tions suit­able for present­ing the pro­pos­als to the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee. The CNPA is happy to input to view­point selec­tion. Nat­ur­al Her­it­age / Eco­logy Reports Phase 1 Hab­it­at Sur­vey — this is required for all route options which allows for the path cor­ridor and also pro­posed lay­down areas for con­struc­tion. This will allow an assess­ment of hab­it­at loss to be made so that par­tic­u­larly sens­it­ive hab­it­ats can be avoided and so that suf­fi­cient com­pens­a­tion for hab­it­at loss can be determ­ined. Known hab­it­at along the route of par­tic­u­lar note: • Mature semi-nat­ur­al wood­land and spe­cies rich (includ­ing Arctosta­phylos) heath (P2) • Mature aspen stands along­side A95 close to Deshar road junc­tion (P4) • Spe­cies rich road verges on west side of A95 at Gran­ish junc­tion (B1) • Avie­lochan and asso­ci­ated pools/​ponds – (B4) • Lochans north of Loch Vaa known to sup­port great cres­ted newts (B8) • Sig­ni­fic­ant aspen stand at Kin­veachy junc­tion (O2) • Mature pine forest along­side B9153 (O2 and 03). | Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans — this will be required to demon­strate how impacts will be avoided, reduced or mit­ig­ated for any pro­tec­ted spe­cies that are likely to be affected by the pro­pos­al. Wood ants fea­ture along all routes and colon­ies are likely in the Loch Vaa and Avie­lochan area. Nar­row headed ant occur in one or two isol­ated loc­a­tions adja­cent to the B9153 and are there­fore very vul­ner­able. This plan will have to include details of trans­lo­ca­tion where this is required. Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al — this will be required to determ­ine the impact of the devel­op­ment in this part of Strath­spey where there is import­ant wood­land hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie, both inside and out­side of des­ig­nated areas (SPAs). The HRA must address impacts through recre­ation dis­turb­ance imme­di­ately adja­cent to the route, but also impacts caused by increas­ing access­ib­il­ity to neigh­bour­ing areas that sup­port caper­cail­lie, (i.e. Docharn, Loch Vaa, Boat of Garten Wood, Kin­vechy area). Con­struc­tion Meth­od State­ment — this will include: • Meth­ods to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance to hab­it­at • Meth­ods of rein­state­ment of track­sides to make this as eco­lo­gic­ally bene­fi­cial as pos­sible • Meas­ures to avoid or min­im­ise impacts to spe­cies Drain­age | Drain­age Impact Assess­ment, includ­ing inform­a­tion on foul and sur­face water drain­age arrange­ments. Cul­tur­al Impacts | Cul­tur­al Her­it­age – con­sid­er­a­tion of any impacts upon any lis­ted build­ing, ancient monu­ments and archae­olo­gic­al interest. Res­id­en­tial Amen­ity | Noise Impact Assess­ment Trans­port Impacts and Pub­lic Access | Trans­port Impact Assess­ment — Trans­port Scot­land and High­land Coun­cil Roads Ser­vice will advise on this aspect,

Pre Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion with the com­munity (PAC | Pre Applic­a­tion Con­sulta­tion Report as required by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment legis­la­tion explain­ing how the pub­lic con­sulta­tion pro­cess has informed devel­op­ment of the pro­pos­al and the meas­ures taken to inform the pub­lic. It is also recom­men­ded that, (aside from the neigh­bour noti­fic­a­tion pro­cess which will be car­ried out by the High­land Coun­cil), the developer advise res­id­ents in the area of the sub­mis­sion of the applic­a­tion in the interests of good prac­tise and pub­lic rela­tions as it is our exper­i­ence that this type of pro­act­ive work is usu­ally bene­fi­cial. Organ­isa­tion | Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity (CNPA) Name | Emma Bryce Pos­i­tion | Plan­ning Man­ager (Devel­op­ment Man­age­ment) Email | planning@​cairngorms.​co.​uk Phone | 01479 873535 | Please attach any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion as a sep­ar­ate file and send to majorpreapps@​highland.​gov.​uk